


Staunch Professionalism

by Kinematic



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Abuse of commas and em dashes, First Kiss, M/M, POV Second Person, Totally fabricated series of events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 14:35:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12866574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinematic/pseuds/Kinematic
Summary: This kiss is sickeningly sweet. It’s a nectar that dribbles down your chin and neck. But beyond quenching your thirst, it leaves you wholly sated. Sated for weeks. Sated for a lifetime.





	Staunch Professionalism

**Author's Note:**

> This is totally made up, so please don't sue. This is also totally unbeta'd and probably riddled with errors, so my apologies in advance.

You’re parched.

Parched with a very particular kind of thirst. Something wrong.

It’s wrong to want a married man. Isn’t it?

There are moments, when the cameras turn from you after a long day of filming, when you’re lying in the grass in the villa’s garden, when he touches you. As himself. Not as Oliver, but as _Armie._ It’s tantalizing. It’s too much.

You lean into his touch every time, as Elio might, and wonder, as Elio did, if he notices. If he does, it registers as nothing more than a sign of platonic affection. So he doesn’t stop. You thank the heavens for this.

You start to do it, too. You feel emboldened by his confidence.

Casual touches on the shoulders, the back—even the face. You sit beside him on the press tours, chatting, laughing, touching. And just as you felt on those hot summer days back in Italy, you feel yourself _hungry_ for something you are too ashamed to admit, all spurred by the feel of his fingertips on your skin, or yours on his.

But, as Armie says, you wear your emotions on your sleeve. And perhaps, for a brief while, you could keep it concealed. But not forever. It was only a matter of time before he noticed the way your touches linger. And Armie is smart. Of course he’d notice.

And yet, he keeps touching you. And sometimes not gently. Sometimes, after a well-placed joke, he places his baseball-glove-of-a-palm across your thigh and _shakes_. He’s powerful, you learned, over the course of filming, when he, as Oliver, might pin you down. But then, back in Italy, he had a sense of restraint. As a professional, he didn’t want to cross any lines.

You wished he had less integrity. Wished he would have pinned you down full-force.

But here, in a small café in Berlin, or a park bench in the courtyard outside a convention center, or in a car on the way to a talk show taping, he plays himself. Not a character.

And he touches you like he’s flirting. Like he wants you.

But he’s married. And she’s amazing.

But the way he touches you, he has to know, is intoxicating. It quenches that thirst, if only for a little while, but it leaves you buzzed and giddy. It makes you foolish. It makes you touch him back even when you know you shouldn’t.

It makes you lean in to kiss him—for real—in a stairwell on your way to a business meeting.

You learned just moments before that the person you were expected to meet was not yet ready to see you both. So you lingered in the tight, quiet stairwell together, making fun of the sepia tone photos on the wall. One featured a man with a handlebar mustache seated atop of a penny-farthing, which you said was Armie in another lifetime.

“It is not,” he says, with feigned indignation. As if he can’t believe you said such a thing, but yet he was glad you did.

“Well then,” you begin, “which one do you think I am?”

Armie taps his chin quizzically, accepting the challenge right away. He quickly scans the portraits, rising up a few steps to a picture of an elderly woman smoking a cigar.

“Here you go,” Armie says, jabbing a finger toward the image. You rise up to get a better look, but you are still a step below him.

You nod, strangely pleased with his choice. “I can only hope to be as much of a badass someday.”

“Aw, Timmy,” he says, and he _places_ his big hands on your shoulders, “I think you’re that much of a badass today.”

You barely hear what he says. The moment he touches you, your brain short-circuits. You were always shorter than him, obviously, but with you standing below him, it’s even more exaggerated. It makes you hard. As he stands over you in this narrow stairwell, with light streaming in through an old, paint-chipped window and striking the top of his beautiful blond hair with fire, as he says he likes you—it’s more than you can take. You get lost in the sight of him. As Armie. And you—pitifully—as Timmy.

He sees the way you’re looking at him. You know, because you see his Adam’s apple bob. And yet, there’s no hesitation in what he says next. It’s as if he’s rehearsed it many times before: “I think we’re a good match.”

“Me too,” you say, voice thick with desire, barely concealed. Your throat is dry. Has been dry for so long.

He knows.

He says, “Elizabeth thinks so, too.”

You startle, blinking and tilting your head. “You mean?”

“In the way you’re thinking, yeah.”

Under the weight of his hands, as he looms over you, as your blood rushes southward and pounds in your ears, he adds, “I’m serious.”

“No, no, I heard you.”

Armie smiles.

You lean forward, and in one fluid motion, his hands move to your face. He pulls you in even further, closing the gap between your lips.

Raw strength. Raw sexuality. Raw need. You succumb to him, overwhelmed by all three.

This kiss is sickeningly sweet. It’s a nectar that dribbles down your chin and neck. But beyond quenching your thirst, it leaves you wholly sated. Sated for weeks. Sated for a lifetime.

For once, it’s _Armie_ kissing _Timmy_ , not Oliver kissing Elio. It’s not pretend. It’s—over.

“Gentlemen,” you hear coming from above, along with the creak of wooden steps. Armie releases you quickly. You’re dizzy, trying to regain your balance. “Sorry to keep you waiting. They’re ready for you now.”

“Great. Thanks,” Armie says abruptly, and begins to ascend the staircase as if you were not almost discovered just microseconds prior. Like you said: he’s a professional.

But at a moment like this, you struggle to be. You forget, for a moment, why you’re there.

It’s as if he senses this. He can tell you’re not yet following him.

“Timmy,” he says, turning around. The delicious rumble of his voice grounds you back in reality.

“Yeah,” you say. “Coming.”

Before you continue, however, you catch a glance of the photos on the wall. The man on the bike and the smoking grandma.

Him, and you.

You follow him.

And before long, you’ll taste that sweet nectar again. Without shame. Without guilt. Without ever feeling the need to ask him who _you_ are or trying to figure out who _he_ is.

You’ll just know.


End file.
